Saturday, January 5, 2013

Bye Bye Blog: The Re-post

I posted this a couple of days ago on my other blog, Roger Eschbacher Books, and wanted to see if anyone here had any thoughts or comments. Feedback (especially if it's not related to baseball) appreciated. ;c)

And now, the re-post:

I launched this Roger Eschbacher Books blog a few years back with the intention of having a landing spot specifically for the readers of my books (as opposed to The Novel Project, my blog primarily aimed at other authors).

BUT...

Anyone who's been following Roger Eschbacher Books knows I haven't been very good about updating this blog at all. In fact, I've been terrible! So, unless there are any strenuous objections of the "you moron, here's what you should really do" variety, I'm thinking it might be time to consolidate the platform and put this old and neglected horse out to pasture.

A couple of options I'm considering...

  • Renaming "The Novel Project" and calling it "Roger Eschbacher Books." The Novel Project was the name I came up with to chronicle the march toward completion and publication of my first NaNoWriMo project that was to eventually become Dragonfriend. Since that book is completed and published, well...
  • Getting a new URL for the "new" blog (to replace http://thenovelproject.blogspot.com/)
  • Focusing all of my blogging energies on the revamped site -- retaining The Novel Project's author-centric bent but tossing in some reader focused material, too.
  • Retaining the sillyroger url but have it "silently" point to the new and improved blog (or should I just chuck this domain name altogether? For some reason, I'm loathe to dump it but I think that might just be sentimentality at play as I'm not sure its all that good for my current "brand." I've had it for over ten years but came up with sillyroger when my focus was primarily on picture books for the 4-8 year old crowd, not middle-grade fantasy novels).
I know this is all inside baseball stuff of interest (maybe) only to other authors, but I'd love to hear everyone's feedback/suggestions on what I should do as I'm not one hundred percent sure about which path I should take. Thanks!

7 comments:

Keith Robinson said...

See, I didn't see this post on your other blog. I agree that you should consolidate to this single blog.

I recommend you keep thenovelproject.blogger.com as it is but set it up with a personal domain in future. A personal domain is easier for readers to type in, remember, etc. I do like "The Novel Project" and it fits ALL your work and not just your first book, but on the other hand, it makes more sense to have your name as a domain and title if possible.

You're lucky enough that rogereschbacher.com is available -- snap it up now! I see that thenovelproject.com is NOT available, so maybe this answers your question; use rogereschbacher.com as your web address, switch to "Roger Eschbacher Books" as your title, but use thenovelproject.blogger.com as your actual blog so that all incoming links across the internet remain working.

If you ever want to move away from Blogger.com in the future, you'll be able to do so because by then you'll be established with rogereschbacher.com. If and when you start using this domain, make sure that all your permalinks (past and present) use the domain too. This makes you and all your content more portable in future.

Roger Eschbacher said...

Keith: I took your advice and secured rogereschbacher.com (good-bye, sillyroger.com!). Your thoughts about the rest of the consolidating/re-branding make sense, too. I really appreciate that you took the time to share your expertise. Thanks!

Keith Robinson said...

You're very welcome!

And by the way, there's no need to ditch sillyroger.com if you don't want to. You can point it to the same blog and retain any traffic it might be getting.

Welcome, rogereschbacher.com!

Daniel said...

I agree with everything Keith said. I was thinking along the same lines as I read your post.

I think it's particularly important to have a dedicated domain rather than (or in addition to) a blogspot.com sub-domain. Blogger is a fine service, but you never know what will happen in the future. You may want to move your blog somewhere else one day, and having your own domain makes it possible to keep whatever following you've built. It makes me sad to see authors building big followings under a subdomain because, well, stuff happens.

As for combining blogs, I hear you. Keeping up with one blog is hard enough. Managing two seems exponentially harder. (I think what makes it exponentially more difficult is carving that extra time out of your schedule.)

I try to keep my blog reader-oriented, but I can't help but put writer stuff on there once in a while. Even then, I try to spin it in a way that readers might find it interesting too.

Best of luck, whatever you decide to do.

Roger Eschbacher said...

Daniel: I agree that it'll be important to balance posts on the new blog with more reader-friendly material. I may even title it Roger Eschbacher Books and Other Writing which is what I call my FB author page. The "other writing" in that case is usually info on my animation gigs which readers/followers seem to enjoy.

Also, a very good point about taking steps to protect an important part of my author platform. I can't imagine Blogger going away but, as you correctly point out, "stuff happens."

Thanks for weighing in on the subject!

Scott Bury said...

I know how hard it is to keep up two blogs. I think you're right to consolidate into one; The Novel Project works for both readers and writers, I think.

I have been considering moving my blogger blog to hosting on my own site; I'm just wondering about the time demands it takes, and losing followers, so I'll be interested to read about your experience.

Roger Eschbacher said...

Thanks for checking in, Scott. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see who comes over to the "new" blog from the old one. I have a feeling there won't be that big of a loss as there's already some overlap. We'll see.

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